The evidence presented at the sentencing hearing of mass shooter Alexandre Bissonnette before it wrapped up last week has painted a much clearer picture of what caused the 28-year-old to walk into a Quebec City mosque and spray it with gunfire.

It has put to rest most of the lingering questions about what transpired during that cold night in January 2017, when six men were murdered and 19 injured. But that hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists from dredging up the discredited possibility of a second shooter on the scene. A recent YouTube video that purports to be a news report on the sentencing arguments for Bissonnette recently wondered about the “Moroccan” man who supposedly shouted “Allahu akbar.”

To be clear: There was never any second shooter. The surveillance video evidence presented in court demonstrates that Bissonnette acted alone and the roots of the rumour can be easily explained. But the so-called report shows the pernicious staying power of fake news, a dangerous phenomenon that is cropping up with increasing frequency in our ever more polarized society.

In the confusion surrounding the massacre, police initially arrested a man at the scene they thought was a second suspect. The Quebec news media reported this and soon his name filtered out along with Bissonnette’s, who gave himself up to police later that night.

However, police quickly realized the second man was a witness who was trying to bring first aid to the gravely wounded and fled in fear when armed officers descended on the mosque. The record was quickly set straight, appropriate corrections sent out and the man even gave an interview with CBC explaining what occurred. But that didn’t stop the erroneous information from spreading widely.

More than a year later, this alternative narrative seems to have taken on a life of its own. It morphed into fake news as soon as people decided to cling to it, despite evidence to the contrary, and is now being peddled it as proof of some kind of shadowy cover up.

The fact this supposed second suspect was of Moroccan origin (it was recently revealed in court that he was a worshipper who had gone outside to clear snow before bullets started flying) has been used to imply the shooting was an attack by Islamic radicals. Even though the victims were themselves Muslims and the target a mosque, for some it remains inconceivable that the sole perpetrator was a Quebec francophone motived by a hatred of immigrants.

Similarly, a reporter’s tweet from the scene of the van attack in Toronto last Monday that killed 10 and injured 14, quoted an eyewitness who described the driver as “Middle Eastern.” The suspect arrested in the attack was later revealed to be a 25-year-old of Armenian heritage who is alleged to have lashed out in the name a little known subculture of “involuntary celibates.” Still, the inaccurate description has continued to ricochet its way through the fake new realm as proof that this is somehow linked to Islamic extremism.

I bring this up not to fuel these unfounded falsehoods but to raise awareness about the prevalence of fake news and where it comes from.

Debunked myths are just one type. Hoaxes, fabrications and malicious lies that spread like wildfire, often to further a nefarious agenda, are others.

Fake news has become slick and calculated in the time of Facebook. From Russian troll factories seeking to undermine U.S. democracy during the 2016 presidential elections to the shameless smears of a gun lobby desperate to stave off any attempt at arms control, fake news is lurking everywhere.

Fake news often has the veneer of real news, but sets out to achieve the opposite. It is designed to fool people, fuel their fears, mislead and manipulate. Adding to the confusion is that the term fake news is often bandied about carelessly, used to describe real news or commentary that someone simply doesn’t like, or coverage that challenges the status quo.

Does that mean that journalists who work for traditional news outlets are always right and don’t have faults? No. Plenty of errors happen every day, which puts an even greater importance on the basic tasks of verifying facts and being right, which is, of course, more challenging when major news is breaking.

And much legitimate criticism can be levelled at the media over how it chooses what to cover and what not to cover, how it frames issues, whether a report is as objective as it purports to be. There’s a cold dose of truth that should give every credible journalist pause in Noam Chomsky’s concept of “manufacturing consent” or Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message.”

However, sound journalism is more important than ever. This may sound self-serving coming from a columnist with a soapbox in the MSM (the pejorative term for mainstream media). But an informed public who asks questions is at the heart of a healthy democracy.

It’s heartening that people are starting to wise up to the tricks and traps of fake news. The 2018 CanTrust index — a poll of 1,560 Canadians conducted by Proof (formerly Environics) and Montreal’s Capital Image — found that trust in traditional news outlets is rising, while confidence in social networks, bloggers and influencers is on the wane.

The importance of basic media literacy that both Chomsky and McLuhan sought to underscore would go a long way toward addressing the scourge of fake news and help the public to determine truth from lie. Choosing sources of news carefully, seeking information from multiple outlets, understanding the various kinds of information that exist (straight news, analysis and opinion) and having a grasp of the newsgathering process, would all help separate facts from fake news.

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